How not to ambush a Carrier

The alternate title for this post is “Why I need to stop flying bloody Falcons”

Note: Screenshots will be uploaded when I get to a system capable of doing so. Until then, enjoy my WALL OF TEXT

It’s a Thursday night! Our new static wormhole is being scouted by one of our newest recruits, Barrak, with a hope of us getting in our uber new recruit, Sanzo, who is currently stuck in the mysterious land of high security space. Home is quiet, so I jump into the C4 with Barrak to help with scouting. Our plans of scanning further are halted, however, by the appearance of a piloted Viator in the single Tower in system.

Myself and Barrak warp to an observation point, where we notice a Drake battlecruiser also log in. The Drake is quickly followed by a Maelstrom battleship, Legion T3 cruiser, and a Thanatos carrier also appears on scan.

All of the ships are now sat and piloted inside the POS. The Thanatos pilot ejects and logs off, whilst the Viator pilot swaps into the Thanatos. I batphone Silent Terror, who logs on, but anyone else is out of my contact ability.

Whilst we’re debating on Vent how best to proceed, the ships, Thanatos included, warp out to a a Barracks anomaly site. I try to initiate a warp to follow but am unable to. A re-scan removes this particular anomaly from my scanner, removing any chance of me warping to the site without probes. ST notes on Vent that this isn’t a problem – such a fleet wouldn’t be running just one Anomaly, so we just wait till the next one, so I bookmark every anomaly.

Whilst wrecks slowly clog my directional scan, we formulate our amazingly awesome plan. ST will field a Bhaalgorn with 2 Blaster Megathrons, along with a Guardian. Barrak will field a second Guardian, keeping a cheetah alt on their tower. Myself and Firefly will go in first in our cloaky Tengu and Loki to establish initial tackle and then reship to a Falcon and Maelstrom respectively.

Time passes, but the fleet eventually warps into another anomaly. I follow at range, bouncing off a bookmark twice to get a spot some 200km away from the fleet. All of them are stationary on the site warp-in, all engaging Sleepers.

The fleet is ready, so Fire and Barrak’s Cheetah warps to me, cloaked, in preparation to engage when the Sleeper threat is minimal. Only a few minutes pass before only 2 Sleeper Battleships remain in the anomaly, so I call an align to a wreck next to the Thanatos and warp the 3 of us in.

We all decloak and point the Thanatos. The other ships quickly scatter to their POS, but the Thanatos is firmly stuck. The Bhaalgorn, Megas and Guardians all land for our side, so myself and Firefly warp home to re-ship.

The Thanatos is keeping up with our damage, according to comms, but it won’t last long under the Neuts of the Bhaalgorn. A hostile Falcon is now seen on directional scan at the POS, as well as a second Thanatos and a Moros. This could be bad.

I warp back with my own Falcon, fit with a mix of Caldari and Gallente jams, and Firefly also lands in his battleship. The Thanatos is slowly bleeding armour now, currently at about 60%. The hostile Falcon decloaks 80km from me, 40km from the main fight, but I quickly jam him before he can overcome his recalibration delay and he warps away. Meanwhile, our Cheetah reports the other Thanatos warping in, with a Talos also at the tower.

The first Thanatos is at about 15% armour, but now the second one has landed. I attempt a jam to prevent Remote Repair systems, but the first attempt fails. The Thanatos dislikes my attempt, however, and a flight of fighters is sent my way.

Down my Falcon, I warp away to grab a new one. Without my jams, the first carrier is now at almost 100% armour again thanks to Remote Repairs, and some more ships are at the POS.

I warp back to the field a few minutes later to find a Talos, Hurricane, Falcon and Maelstrom now on field for the enemy, in addition to the two Thanatos. We can’t win now, we simply don’t have the DPS to break either carrier and our logistics is beginning to struggle under the enemy’s . I jam out everything I can, getting jams on the Talos, Cane and one of the Thanatos before we all warp home. None of the remaining ships decided to point us.

No kills, and only my Falcon lost. We evidently missed the Carrier kill, but we were happy enough with getting away with no serious losses of our own. A short collapse of the Static later and all is quiet again.

I have so far lost 2 ships in wormhole space. Both were Falcons. I shall stop flying Falcons.

yo! just wanna say thanks for all the fleets in RvB back in the day, glad to see you’ve found another area of eve that keeps you on your toes. i seem to remember you getting away from Harrow, good for you if I remember right, i’m still stuck here 😦